Hokusai manga (Sketches of Hokusai), v. 1-3, 5-11, and 14 of 15

The opening three volumes, first issued in 1814, established the entire enterprise. Printed from woodblocks in a restrained palette of black, grey, and a single muted flesh tone, they were compiled in Nagoya with Hokusai's local pupils and admirers in mind. The very first volume announced the project's boundless ambition: page after page crowded with human figures, tools, creatures, and landscapes, arranged less by logic than by the roving appetite of the artist's eye. These were not luxury art objects but working books, sold at modest prices and meant to be handled, studied, and copied. Their popularity was immediate and enduring, prompting the long series of sequels that would stretch across Hokusai's lifetime and beyond. To hold these opening volumes is to stand at the source — the moment the word manga first appeared on a cover, attached to nothing more grand, and nothing less influential, than a printmaker's overflowing sketchbook.